Regex for matching single,double an no quotes

Question

I use preg_replace function that has to clear all the rel and target attributes from the $body and to replace them with other values. Here it is:

    $patterns = array();
    $patterns[] = '/<a(.*) rel="([^"]*)"(.*)>/';
    $patterns[] = '/<a(.*) target="([^"]*)"(.*)>/';
    $patterns[] = '/<a(.*)>/';

    $replacements = array();
    $replacements[] = '<a$1$3>';
    $replacements[] = '<a$1$3>';
    $replacements[] = '<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"$1>';

    $body = preg_replace($patterns,$replacements,$body);

The problem is that it does not match single and no-quotes. Also if there is any better approach for clearing the rel and target attributes from the links and setting them with others, please advise.

Thanks

EDIT: $body:

    $body = '<a href="TEST">Link1</a>
      <a href="TEST" rel=\'lqlqlq\'>Link2</a>
      <a href="TEST" target="_blank" rel="lqlqlq">Link3</a>
              <a href="TEST" target=_blank rel=lqlqlq>Link4</a>';

And also every other option for working links due to the text is user defined and probably some users are going to cheat. My goal - all of the links in $body to be with defined rel and target attributes no matter what the user has entered.

in regex you can write ["']? which means double, single quotes both optional — Maks3w, Sep 13 '12 at 07:55
You can use SimpleXML or other XML library to scan your source and getting the elements more cleanly — Maks3w, Sep 13 '12 at 07:56
Looks like you're attempting to parse HTML using regex, [read this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454) and realize you're doing _EVIL_ things — Elias Van Ootegem, Sep 13 '12 at 08:08

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '12 at 08:08

1

If you don't want to match anything else at the same time I suggest you don't and preserve system resources.

$patterns[] = "/rel=[\"\']?([\w]+)[\"\']?/";
$patterns[] = "/target=[\"\']?([_a-zA-Z]+)[\"\']?/"

I'm not the best at REGEX but as far as I know this will save you some time.

answered Sep 13 '12 at 08:08

Daniel

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great, did the job. Thank you! – Constantin.FF Sep 13 '12 at 08:34

pagid · Answer 2 · 2012-09-13T08:13:06.610

Most likely it matches them but due to the fact that <a(.*)> will always match no matter what the first two did, you won't get any results from the first two pattern.

This could do what you're looking for:

$patterns = array();
$patterns[] = '/<a(.*) rel=[\'"]?\S+[\'"]? (.*)>/';
$patterns[] = '/<a(.*) target=[\'"]?\S+[\'"]? (.*)>/';

$replacements = array();
$replacements[] = '<a$1$3>';
$replacements[] = '<a$1$3>';

$body = preg_replace($patterns,$replacements,$body);

Cheers.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 02 '13 at 14:58

0

this expression will handle 3 options:

no quotes
double quotes
single quotes

'/href=["\']?([^"\'>]+)["\']?/'

answered Aug 02 '13 at 14:58

ishubin

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Regex for matching single,double an no quotes

3 Answers3